


Certainty

by boudicca



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: BDSM, Introspection, M/M, Masochism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-21
Updated: 2011-04-21
Packaged: 2017-10-18 10:51:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boudicca/pseuds/boudicca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lithuania reflects on the S/M relationship he has with Russia.  Companion piece to "Foolish."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Certainty

**Author's Note:**

> Kink meme de-anon.

In the privacy of his own mind, in the privacy of their home, Lithuania has come to accept what he is.

 _Masochist._

The word for it still rankles, though, stirs up memories, still vivid more than a century later, of when he first saw the word. He remembers the smell of the library in Vilnius, the crisp pages of the book in his hands, the way his heart pounded for looking at a book like this, even though he'd lied and told the librarian he was a medical student. But most of all he remembers the sick feeling in his stomach as he deciphered the book's stiff, academic German - _abnormality_ , _tainted_ , _a sign of degeneration_ , _perversion_. He didn't know what he had expected - maybe the possibility that it could go away? - but all he found was stomach-churning _certainty_ that Krafft-Ebing was right. He was abnormal, tainted, sick and degenerate, a pervert.

Certainty is a problem.

Even now, when sharing his life with Russia is a personal matter and not a political one, when just typing that unfortunate word into a search engine shows that there are thousands like him, all of them without centuries of politics and warfare complicating their relationships, certainty is so hard to find.

As Lithuania's friends and acquaintances are fond of pointing out, it is not so difficult to be wrong about this sort of thing.

Stockholm syndrome. Spousal abuse syndrome. Rape trauma syndrome, pathological transference, post-traumatic stress disorder. He has spent more hours reading about these conditions than some psychiatrists have been alive, and spent as many nights staring at the ceiling, scrutinizing his mind, his behavior, their relationship.

He loves Russia. That is certain. But when everyone claims otherwise, when even Russia himself is sure that Lithuania's love for him is self-destructive - how can he stand against them all and say that there is nothing pathological about it, when he isn't certain himself?

 

It isn't all doubt.

Certainty is a problem, but it is not unattainable. Sometimes his doubts and his worries, the miserable chorus at the back of his mind, is _silenced_.

When Russia hurts him, he is certain.

They use the modern terminology - _play_ \- but in his head, where it can't frighten Russia and make him put that awful fake smile on his face, Lithuania is more honest. It's when Russia hurts him that it all fades away.

It's hard to reassure Russia when he has doubts himself sometimes, but it's so easy in the moment that he is baffled that Russia can't feel it too. _God,_ yes _, how could the answer be anything_ other _than yes when he's bound, arms and legs spread wide on a St. Andrew's cross and Russia is asking him,_ asking him, _like it isn't obvious._

There have been missteps, to be sure - like that time in '53 when they decided to use that pipe Russia picked up in the war; he said he liked the weight of it in his hands. It hadn't gone well, and the face Russia made as he watched Lithuania move around the house gingerly almost hurt more than the bruises and the two cracked ribs, even though Lithuania knew that Russia's disgust and horror wasn't directed at him. Russia doesn't like to even be reminded of that incident, and Lithuania knows that it is not just guilt over hurting him more than he'd meant to, but that Russia had enjoyed doing so, that makes Russia find the memory so disturbing. Russia would barely touch him for a long time after that.

But he's learned, they've learned, and it seems to Lithuania that Russia must know every sensation, ever twitch and shiver and pang and throb that he feels, because Russia knows just how to do it right. Lithuania can't quite grasp how Russia doesn't feel it the way he feels it - feel his conscious self, all the doubt and misery and anxiety and everything else vanish as _sensation_ overcomes him. He's nothing but his body and there's nothing in the world but him and Russia and the tools Russia wields on his skin.

Certainty doesn't last forever, and they can't do things too intensely that often; they cycle through areas of Lithuania's skin, back-ass-thighs-chest, but run out of flesh to torment before the first has healed completely.

It's still there, the peaceful silence in his mind, afterwards, when Russia bundles Lithuania in a soft, heavy blanket marked with comfortingly familiar stains of his blood. They curl up together while they catch their breaths and return to themselves, while the sensation returns to Lithuania's hands, numbed from hyperventilation. Sometimes there's sex then, while they're still trembling, but it is an afterthought at times like that - gentle, tender frot, more about doing everything they can to melt into one another than about getting off. Once Lithuania can stand, they go upstairs and Russia draws a bath, lowers Lithuania in and washes away any blood.

In bed, Russia wraps around him like a warm, heavy blanket, and Lithuania gratefully snuggles back against him, even though the contact makes the welts on his back start stinging again. By morning, he won't be able to explain this anymore, the _perfection_ of this moment, but now, he sinks into sleep easily, untormented by doubt.

**Author's Note:**

> The book referred to is Krafft-Ebings _Psychopathia Sexualis_ , which named sadism and masochism, though they had been described before, and classified them as perversions.


End file.
